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Surah An-Nur — 24:45

وَٱللَّهُ خَلَقَ كُلَّ دَآبَّةٍ مِّن مَّآءٍ ۖ فَمِنْهُم مَّن يَمْشِى عَلَىٰ بَطْنِهِۦ وَمِنْهُم مَّن يَمْشِى عَلَىٰ رِجْلَيْنِ وَمِنْهُم مَّن يَمْشِى عَلَىٰٓ أَرْبَعٍ ۚ يَخْلُقُ ٱللَّهُ مَا يَشَآءُ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ قَدِيرٌ

Wallaahu khalaqa kulla daaabbatim mim maaa'in faminhum mai yamshee 'alaa batnihee wa minhum mai yamshee 'alaa rijlaine wa minhum mai yamshee 'alaaa arba'; yakhluqul laahu maa yashaaa'; innal laaha 'alaa kulli shai'in Qadeer

And God created every living creature from water. Some of them move on their bellies, some walk on two legs, and some walk on four. God creates what he wills. Indeed, God has power over all things.

Reflection

Arabic uses the relative pronoun for persons, man, of the creatures in this verse, where the grammar for things would do; commentators explained it as the human beings among them carrying the rest. The sorting that follows is by gait alone, belly then two legs then four, and it stops there without reaching the many-legged. Water carried the passage two verses earlier as rain driven out of cloud, and it returns here as the one material every moving thing is made from.

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